We started off our day in Belfast with the famous
Black Taxi Tours. Your driver picks you up in a black taxi and takes your around the city sharing Ireland's political history with you. He shared a lot about the Irish and the British, and the catholics and the protestants. Our cab driver was really interesting. He shared with us a lot of stuff, and the tour felt very personal. He made it a point to answer all our questions, and even took us to a beautiful monastery.
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| The famous International Wall |
Most of the murals painted are by the famous Irish political artist Danny Devenny. The murals come and go (give our take two years); they are constantly changing to depict the current political events happening around the world.
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| This mural, the Dignity Wall, was the favorite of our cab driver, who also happens to be a friend of Danny D. In fact, he told us that we had just missed Danny D. As we were driving up to the International Wall, Danny D. was just leaving. |
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| Clonard Monastery |
In Northern Ireland there are a series of border barriers that separate Irish nationalist and unionist neighborhoods, the Peace Lines or Peace Walls. They are meant to minimalise the violence between the nationalists who identify as Irish (and also Catholics) and the unionists who identify as British (and also Protestants). Our driver took us to the Peace Wall in Belfast, and gave us a marker to sign our names.
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| Cris signing the wall |
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| There's my name |
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| At the Peace Wall |
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| With our cab driver, Carl, and his Black Taxi |
After the tour we had lunch at the Titanic Quarter, and then went to the
Titanic Museum (£10 student rate), which is the world's largest Titanic visitor attraction.
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| Titanic Museum |
One of Belfast's claim to fame is as the city where the Titanic was built. The museum was very interesting -- it not only said a lot about the Titanic, but also of the Belfast shipping industry, especially during the times when the Titanic was built.
There was also a special exhibit in one of the galleries called "Brick City"(£3 when bought with the Titanic Exhibit ticket), which featured several amazing LEGO constructions.
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| LEGO recreation of Westminster Abbey |
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| LEGo recreation of St. Pancras station |
After the museum, we walked around the Titanic Quarter a bit, then crossed the bridge to explore the other side. We spotted the Big Fish, a ceramic sculpture of well, a big fish, decorated with newspaper clippings, texts, and pictures relating to Belfast's history.
We continued walking around the Cathedral Quarter and passed by St. Arthur's Clock Tower and also St. Anne's Cathedral, though we weren't able to explore the inside as we had to pay. We walked around some more and ended up in Victoria Square, a shopping centre with a glass dome that allows you a view of Belfast City.
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| Victoria's Square with the dome at the back |
Belfast is really such a small city, and since we had seen pretty much everything we wanted to see (except the Botanical Gardens which we would visit the next day), we decided to watch a movie and then called it a night.
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